WHITE FOX

Pardon? Just a half hour or so, I would say.

MAN ON THE MOON

(scoffing)

Impossible. Why, we’ve been here at least ten nights already.

WHITE FOX

(puzzled)

What do you mean? The sun hasn’t risen.

MAN ON THE MOON

That’s because we are too far up in the sky!

White Fox sips her tea suspiciously as the Man on the Moon turns on the headlamp atop his glasses and reviews materials.

WHITE FOX (V.O.)

I had a limited understanding of science of any kind, but I knew this to be wrong. Still, I’d had difficulties prying too deeply into the belief systems of these strangers I’d encountered, so I remained silent and let him believe what he wanted to believe.

White Fox and the Man on the Moon sit and enjoy dinner and then stare up at the sky through his equipment.

WHITE FOX (V.O.)

He was a brilliant man, if a bit unusual.

At another lavish dinner, some unknowable time later, the Man on the Moon and White Fox are laughing brightly. She looks at ease. But with this new ease comes new questions.

WHITE FOX

Don’t you wonder where all of this comes from?

MAN ON THE MOON

The stars, my dear? Well, that’s all on account of the—

WHITE FOX

(interrupting)

No, I mean these elaborate displays of food and drink.

MAN ON THE MOON

(scratching his head)

What? Why no, I never thought about that.

WHITE FOX

Or why it’s always night, never day?

MAN ON THE MOON

(brightening)

It all has to do with a branch of particle—

WHITE FOX

No, it doesn’t! Or how we never sleep? Haven’t you ever thought someone is trapping you here and keeping you distracted?

MAN ON THE MOON

From what, my dear?

WHITE FOX

Reality!

MAN ON THE MOON

This is my reality: If we look up and out of ourselves, we can stop human time and become part of the heavens!

White Fox is silent.

WHITE FOX (V.O.)

At this point I knew him to be broken. But he was a kind man. And in the few weeks I’d spent with him, I felt good as new. I began to wonder: Did feeling good as new have only to do with being the possession of a man? Or was it my isolation from society—my ignorance of its inconvenient truths? I had to test this.

White Fox steals a bunch of food when the Man on the Moon is busy making his notations.

Then she climbs down the many ladders: The Man on the Moon doesn’t even notice her descent. She gives him a final, almost regretful glance.

As she climbs, the glowing sets of eyes reappear beneath her feet.

Little shadowed ARMS grab at her legs.

White Fox shrieks and beats them away.

WHITE FOX (V.O.)